Summer 2016 Episode Rankings – Week 8

I forgot to mention in my previous blog post that I was going away for a long weekend, without internet, hence this post’s long delay. Hopefully Week 9’s post will be on time, but that all depends on whether I can catch up with everything…

Catching up was made slightly easier this week by the fact that 91 Days aired a recap episode, and with one of the others in my lineup coming to an end entirely, I’ll have one less thing to watch going forward as well.

Re: Zero takes #1 in 91 Days’ absence – the fight against the whale(s) was great.

Great to see Bodin again, albeit briefly – I do like fanatical, pure evil villains, in addition to ones you can sympathize with like Hermes.

Ending:

Arslan Senki: Fuujin Ranbu ends on a high note, with a brilliant episode that set things up perfectly for the next arc… which we’re going to have to wait for. 😦 Arslan agrees to help Etoile save her king, and marches for the capital despite his father’s orders. Andragoras’ army also prepares to fight the Lusitanians, with the conflicting goal of wiping them all out. Hermes made another appearance, taking back the Rukhnabad sword that strengthens his own claim to the throne, and he is also now at odds with the Lusitanians. Things are really looking bad for Guiscard… though the other three armies are just as likely to take each other out before they get to him! Overall, I found Fuujin Ranbu’s seaport pirate arc lacking compared with those from the first series; the villain was obvious, and the things going on in Ecbatana and around Hermes were more interesting. Needless to say though, I’ll be returning for any sequel(s) this gets.

Moving up:

More backstory in this week’s Macross Delta, with the first half focusing on Walkure. How they were formed, how their lineup has changed over time, and their initial struggle to get results. And more about Mikumo’s creation, of course. Usually I find myself rating such episodes lower, even if they’re really good and develop the characters well as this one did, as I’m more of a plot/action person; for some reason though, I’ve liked these slower recent episodes of Delta. Ep 19’s overview of the whole Macross franchise and how all the series are linked was also brilliant. This week’s ended on a more serious note however, with the revelation that Roid killed the former Windermerian king (who was on death’s door anyway), and also that the young king Heinz is prematurely aging due to the effects of his song. I don’t like Roid, and even now I think he’s probably keeping a lot of secrets from Keith and the others about his true objectives.

Junko truly is a master of despair. 😮

For the first time, Danganronpa 3: Zetsubou-hen overtakes its sister series, and by quite a margin! This one has been a lot more interesting since Enoshima Junko made her appearance. Her first attempt at a survival game pitted the student council against each other, and despite their initial (and understandable!) reluctance to start killing each other, it didn’t take much to trigger the bloodbath. I also liked her reaction to Ryota’s anime – I want to watch it myself, even knowing he’s used all sorts of subliminal trickery to influence the viewers’ emotions. My only real complaint about this series is that most of the class of characters that go on to become the Despairs haven’t received much development yet – a shame, as they all seem like good fun.

Moving down:

As for Danganronpa 3: Mirai-hen, apart from the revelation that Enoshima Junko wannabe and Gekkogahara impersonator Touwa Monaka isn’t the mastermind behind this latest survival game, not much happened to forward the main story. The long battle against multiple Monokumas in order to reach her wasn’t anything special, as they seemed pretty slow-moving… and just when it looked as though we’d have giant robots joining the fray, Monaka gave up. Amusing from a comedy point of view, sure, but my disappointment as action fan outweighs that! Seeing Touko/Genocider Syo again was also fun, especially her delusions regarding Byakuya; can’t say that Naegi’s sister Komaru stood out much in comparison.

As ever, the scenery alone in Tales of Zestiria is enough reason to watch the series.

We resume the main story of Tales of Zestiria: The X this week, following the short break for the amazing Tales of Berseria… and as the drop suggests, I want to go back to Velvet and company! The shift in tone from one to the other was weird, so hopefully they won’t keep doing that. And to start this episode off by having the dragon fly away without a fight was a HUGE disappointment to me as an action fan. Following that was a lot of talking, mostly world development and buildup for the episodes to come. Not terrible, just dull in comparison to the previous episodes (even eps 3 and 4, the ones that aired prior to Berseria).

General comments:

I didn’t expect Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love! Love! to escape the red zone at any point, due to its repetitive nature and underwhelming monster fights, but here it is for the third week in a row! We’ve had some small but great variations to the old format: firstly in episode 6 with Ryuu and Io’s falling out shaking up the usual happy atmosphere, and again in ep 7 the Beppo twins actually tried to help the Earth Defense Club defeat their own monster so they could continue enjoying Christmas with Gora! The twins were back to being antagonists this week, but their monster wasn’t up to the task – his various attempts to engage the club in combat were ignored, as they were too busy enjoying the New Year. And to top it all off, it ended with the twins revealing their true identities to their rivals! I’ve grown to like those two over the course of these three episodes, and it’ll be interesting to see what (if anything) this revelation does to the format!

[…] this season. (No, for some strange reason I have not gotten around to Arslan Senki–despite Angryjellyfish’s glowing endorsement.) It exudes an interesting fin de siecle vibe in its fantasy world. (It’s similar in […]